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California's three largest utilities received approval to collect $27 billion from ratepayers after utility equipment sparked tragic wildfires. The soaring price of electricity has ignited debate about how much California families should bear for the cost of wildfire prevention, whether utilities are balancing risk and affordability and whether the money is being spent wisely.

The Federal Aviation Administration opened the investigation after a rocket booster toppled aboard a drone ship after it was returning from lofting SpaceX's Starlink internet satellites into space.

If humanoid robots make you a bit queasy — would it help if they had fleshy faces that can smile at you?

New technology is making it easier to find the origins of trafficked wildlife so they can be released back to the habitat they came from, instead of languishing for decades as sometimes happens.

President Biden talked about the sweeping changes he has seen during his long career, urged an end to wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan, and said "some things are more important than staying in power."

The University of Iowa’s Office of the State Archaeologist said a 12-day excavation yielded “several mastodon bones,” primarily from the skull. Mastodons are distant cousins of elephants.

So much ice is melting at the Earth's poles that it's affecting the rotation of the planet, scientists say. Its spin is slowing down slightly, causing days to get longer.

San Diego’s coast is home to iconic underwater forests of giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera). Towering 100 feet tall from the ocean’s rocky floor to the surface, they create homes for hundreds of animals to live in and can regulate the impacts of climate change. These forests provide many benefits to the ocean, animals and humans. Beginning January 12, 2024, the UC San Diego Library will host "Ebb and Flow: Giant Kelp Forests through Art, Science and the Archives," an exhibit curated by Oriana Poindexter ’15, Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) alumna and artist. The exhibit displays works created as a result of continued observation of the local giant kelp forest environment by artists, scientists and community members over the past 134 years. The artwork, which will be displayed on the walls of Geisel Library’s main gallery and in The Nest, is the interpretation of the giant kelp forest by four contemporary artists – Julia C R Gray, Dwight Hwang, Marie McKenzie and Oriana Poindexter – in their distinct styles using ceramic, sculpture, oil painting, gyotaku and alternative photographic processes. Seaweed pressings collected in La Jolla from 1890 through 2023 will also be on display. A 1905 seaweed pressing album from the Library’s Special Collections & Archives (SC&A), created by Virginia Scripps and her sister, Ellen Browning Scripps, the founding benefactor of SIO, shows a similar diversity of seaweed species as recent pressings created by SIO Professor Jennifer Smith. Additional pressings from the SIO Herbarium Collection, now housed at the San Diego Natural History Museum (The Nat), will be on loan from the museum for this exhibit and will accompany those from SC&A. Ebb and Flow illuminates the evolution and the persistence of giant kelp forests, ebbing and flowing through time but continuing to hold fast to the rocky shorelines. The works in this collection document the giant kelp forests and associated species from 1890 to the present day by uniting archival material with contemporary art, bridging art and science to inspire awe, ignite curiosity and catalyze dialogue. [Exhibition gallery hours here] Accompanying exhibit: Birch Aquarium at Scripps is hosting an accompanying exhibit, "Hold Fast", which opens on February 8. This exhibit is an immersive art installation that explores San Diego’s local kelp forests and climate change through the lens of three local artists and scientists who use their skills and talents to take climate action. Opening reception: Save the Date: The Library will host an exhibit opening reception on Thursday, January 25, 2024. Sign up to receive our newsletter to get updates about this event.

Madame Entropy is a persona who began participating, unannounced, in public lectures about contemporary art in 2011. Appearing intermittently over the past decade, she is intent on transmitting knowledge about art that doesn’t fit into words. Madame Entropy takes “lecture” into unfamiliar territory, using an interplay of image, text, speech, and gesture to unsettle the experiences of “learning” and “knowing.” The format carries her message, embodying the dynamic relationship between theory and practice. She can be identified by her yellow gloves and citrine earrings. Meredith Tromble is an artist and writer whose work mingles drawing, text, and performance. Her talks, installations, and performances exploring art, science, and technology have been presented at venues ranging from the Mills Museum in California to the Tate Britain and the University of Manizales, Colombia. As artist in residence at the Complexity Sciences Center at the University of California, Davis, she worked with geobiologist and Mars Curiosity Scientist Dawn Sumner to develop artwork with interactive, 3-D projection. One iteration of their work became a “dancer” in performances by the Los Angeles-based company Donna Sternberg Dancers. Writing from the viewpoint of an artist, Tromble has also published extensively in books, web, and radio. Her art writing began with regular commentaries on art for KQED-FM in San Francisco. She was active in broadcasting for fifteen years and has authored many print and digital publications. From 2000 to 2010, she was a core member of the artist collective Stretcher, publishing Stretcher.org and organizing performative art events. Her blog "Art and Shadows,” on contemporary art in light of contemporary science, was honored with an Art Writers Grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation. Tromble is Professor Emeritus, San Francisco Art Institute and Affiliate, Feminist Research Institute, University of California, Davis. Visit: visarts.ucsd.edu/news-events/20240129_meredithtromble.html

A lot of people are sleep deprived, according to the CDC. Some take supplements like melatonin to help. Now there's growing interest in magnesium as a sleep aid. But is there any evidence it works?